This concert was the second concert open to attendees of the American Handel Society Conference, the first having been given by the English Concert the previous evening. The programme was advertised as Princeton University Chamber Choir with special guests Westminster Kantorei (from nearby Westminster Choir College, part of Ryder University). Princeton Chamber Choir began with a daring one-per-part rendition of the first three movements from Domenico Scarlatti’s Stabat Mater. I say daring because this ten-voice setting has exposed passages in each of the parts that that are challenging even when sung with several voices per part. However, the students rose to the challenge very well and had obviously been well trained by conductor Gabriel Crouch. The Westminster Kantorei followed with an almost show-choir rendition of Handel’s Cannons Anthem, no. 11 (HWV 256). Used as we are to the superb tradition of choral singing in this country, I was a little taken back at first by this (literally) all-singing and (metaphorically) all-dancing approach, but within a few bars I realised it was hugely enjoyable to see young singers so obviously enjoying the music. I was therefore a little disappointed to find that the two choirs were not, as I had assumed, joining forces for Dixit Dominus. However, Princeton’s performance was in no way disappointing and both choir (with step-out solos) and orchestra (made up of students and instrumental teaching staff) coped very well with what is a demanding work.

Terence Best has mentioned elsewhere in his review of another concert at Princeton the issue of keeping up to date with scholarly advances when it comes to editions of Handel’s (and other composers’ music) and this is something that continues to dog performances of Dixit. The existing Bärenreiter score and parts were originally issued in 1960 and continue to be reprinted with several errors, most of which are now well known to the Early Music fraternity who alter them without comment in performance. These are, for the most part confined to single notes but there are a couple of odd fugal entries in the last movement (at ‘et in saecula’) that could benefit from an informed review. This may, of course be already being undertaken by the HHA.

Handel wrote 11 anthems for James Brydges, Earl of Carnarvon (later Duke of Chandos) in 1717-18, during a brief period of employment by the Earl. The anthems vary substantially in style and structure and ‘Let God Arise’ is one of the most substantial of the ‘set’. For this reason, it seems odd that Westminster Kantorei did not choose to do the whole of a shorter anthem, rather than a selection of movements from this longer work. However, their choice of only choral movements (nos. 1, 6, 7 and 8) from ‘Let God Arise’ suggests the avoidance of solo movements, and the fact that the anthem borrows material from Dixit Dominus tied the programme together rather neatly, the two most striking examples of borrowing being the anthem’s closing ‘Allelujah’ (‘donec ponam’ from the opening movement of Dixit) and ‘Let them also that hate them flee’ (‘conquassabit’, from ‘Judicabit in nationibus’).

Though composed only 2 years prior to ‘Let God Arise’, Scarlatti’s Stabat Mater belongs to an earlier sound world. Written during a period of employment at Santa Maria Maggiore and the papal Capella Giulia, the austere setting contrasts with the more popular bel canto style of the time, and appears to reflect the composer’s spiritual intentions. Strands of polyphony are woven together in a highly sophisticated counterpoint and although the work is presented for double choir (of five voices), Scarlatti rarely sets the two choirs against each other. Instead, expressive passages in the text are represented by the emergence of solo voices from the texture, often in unbroken soaring melodic lines.